In recent years, numerous soil release finishes have been reported in the patent and other literature; a serious drawback, however, with many of the conventional soil release finishes (particularly, the emulsion or solution types that are padded-on, dried and cured) has been their insufficient fastness to laundering, as has been shown in Textile Research J. 41, 732 (1971) by N. T. Liljemark and H. Asnes; and also, in J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 16, 1235 (1972) by C. E. Warburton, Jr., and L. T. Flynn. In some instances, methods of treatments consist in simple depositing compounds, monomers or polymers between fibers and yarns or of forming a coating on the surface of a substrate. Coover, et al., (U.S. Pat. No. 2,992,943) teaches the application of water-soluble alkyl titanates for prevention of dry soiling; consequently, this finish is only suitable for dry cleaning of these treated products.
Caldwell (U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,685) teaches a coating composition for hydrophobic films and fibers, employing a polymeric polybasic acid and part of the coating is crosslinked with a polyol or an epoxide to form ester linkages giving a hydrophilic insoluble coating with anti-static and soil release properties. While the treatments described in patents by Coover et al. and Caldwell are effective as soil resistant or soil release treatments they are not generally durable to laundering.